1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to on-line character recognition apparatus and, more particularly, to an on-line character recognition apparatus having a group table memory in which characters and symbols can be associated with nominated characters and symbols.
2. Description of the Prior Art
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an outline of a conventional hand-written character recognition apparatus.
In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 designates a tablet, 2 a recognition circuit, 3 a nominated character selecting circuit, 4 a character pattern generating circuit and 5 a display apparatus. According to the prior-art hand-written character recognition apparatus, as shown in FIG. 1, a hand-written character written on the tablet 1 is processed by the recognition circuit 2 and one or a plurality of nominated characters and symbols are thereby extracted for the hand-written character. A character code train of the nominated characters is supplied to the nominated character selecting circuit 3. The nominated character selecting circuit 3 selects a character code of the first position of nominated characters from the character code train supplied thereto, and the selected character code is supplied to the character pattern generating circuit 4. The character pattern generating circuit 4 generates a character pattern corresponding to the character code and the character pattern is displayed on the display apparatus 5. In general, when the user wants to select another one of nominated characters and symbols while watching the contents displayed on the display apparatus 5, if the user depresses a key on the tablet 1, a nominated character selection control signal is supplied to the nominated character selected circuit 3 which then selects the next nominated character.
Incidentally, in the case of the conventional hand-written character recognition apparatus, when the hand-written character is recognized, the user must write a character with great accuracy and care because the recognition circuit must recognize a very small difference between a pair of similar hand-written characters.
For example, a great burden is imposed on the user when the user writes any of the following symbols ( { [ &lt;, to write the symbol so that it is distinguishable from the other symbols by the recognition circuit.
Further, in order that all of these symbols can be distinguished by the recognition circuit, very small differences of these symbols must be distinguished and registered, which causes an increased recognition time and requires an increased capacity of the dictionary. Also, there is a restriction that the hand-written character can be recognized with accuracy.
Furthermore, a method for directly obtaining these characters and symbols from the JIS (Japanese Industrial Standards) code or for searching these characters and symbols from a table imposes a large burden on the user.